Plasma surface engineering of sustainable materials is topic of new FTPP webinar
Using the highly energized gases called plasmas to treat carbon and upcycle plastic wastes into sustainable composites is the topic of a new webinar that’s part of a bimonthly series called Tomorrow’s PSE Leaders, sponsored by Alabama’s Future Technologies & enabling Plasma Processes (FTPP) project.
The Tomorrow’s PSE Leaders webinar series was developed for younger and underrepresented plasma science and engineering scientists, with discussions presented by their peers.
Dr. Sushrisangita Sahoo’s webinar is titled “Effect of low temperature plasma fluorination of waste derived carbon powder and their HDPE polymer composites.” Since 2023, Dr. Sahoo has been a postdoctoral associate in the Material Science and Engineering Department at Tuskegee University (TU), where she does research and guides undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students, as well equipment handling and instrument training. She is from the small village of Cuttack, in Odisha state, India.
“I will give a short introduction about what is low temperature plasma and what its application in materials science,” says Sahoo, adding that she will also explain why plasma surface modification of material is needed. Her plasma research has been sponsored by FTPP, and her current postdoctoral advisor is Dr. Vijaya Rangari, a TU materials science and engineering professor.
“Since my work is mainly focused on plasma surface modification of biomass derived carbon and upcycling/recycling of plastic wastes to obtain sustainable composites, I will discuss the studied waste material and what we obtain after plasma treatment and how the plasma treated carbon material as a filler affects the thermal and mechanical properties of the composites.”
from coffee to composites
Dr. Sahoo is working on reusing spent coffee ground waste as a filler in new composite materials after plasma treatment.
“The huge consumption of coffee in our day-to-day life results a large amount of spent coffee ground waste, which is generally disposed of in a landfill as a solid waste,” she says. “This coffee ground waste contains toxic contents like caffeine, tannins and polyphenols, and needs a large amount of oxygen for the decomposition process.”
That process in turn releases greenhouse gases like methane, which is a major contributor to global warming and climate change, she says. Coffee ground waste is used as a bio-based filler in some polymer composites, but Dr. Sahoo says its performance is not satisfactory due to their inert surfaces and poor compatibility with the polymer matrix.
“In our work, we have to tried functionalize the carbon-derived spent coffee ground waste by low temperature plasma treatment. The plasma treated carbon as a filler exhibits improved thermal and mechanical properties in comparison to the untreated carbon as a filler,” Dr. Sahoo says.
“These plasma-treated carbons were then used as a filler to a waste Walmart bag – which is a high-density polyethylene-polymer matrix – to make a sustainable composite.”
She says the most interesting part of her research is that it covers three major areas: biowaste management that utilizes waste as resource; material science that involves making a sustainable composite using plastic waste and biomass derived waste; and additive manufacturing, a 3D printing application.
“It generally follows the 3R policy – reuse, recycling and reduce – to maintain the closed circular economy loop for a sustainable society, which means protection of environment with economic growth,” says Dr. Sahoo.
FTPP’s influence
FTPP is a coalition of nine statewide universities and a research corporation led by The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and funded by the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). FTPP aims to establish plasma science and engineering as an economic driver in Alabama, and it has brought Dr. Sahoo closer to others in the plasma field statewide.
“The most important thing that I like in the FTPP project is the collaboration work with different universities and institutions, working with different groups and learning each other’s expertise area, as all are working in different research areas,” she says. “I love the annual meeting, presentations and interaction with other researchers during meeting. It’s quite different from other conferences.”
Dr. Sahoo says physics is treated as royal subject in India, so while physics is always reserved for top students, her dream was realized when she took physics as honors during her baccalaureate study.
“So, my love for physics started there,” she says.
After completing her Master of Science in applied physics and ballistics and her doctorate in physics from Fakir Mohan University in Balasore, India, in 2014 Dr. Sahoo worked on piezoelectric, dielectric and multiferroic materials for electronic devices in the field of materials science. She then worked as a research fellow in an industrial project focused on utilization of red mud, a waste product produced during the extraction of alumina from bauxite ore.
She became a leading researcher and postdoctoral fellow at the Research Institute of Physics, Southern Federal University, Russia, from May, 2021 to December, 2022, working on ceramics and polymer materials. She is working to become a research assistant professor.
As her education and career have progressed, Dr. Sahoo credits her parents “for their continuous support, love, guidance and belief in me.” Her mother is a high school geography teacher and her father is her great motivation and her favorite person in the world. Other family members have been supportive, as well.
“I always believe that, if one day I will be able to touch the sky, then my husband, and my elder sister and younger brother will be my wings to fly,” she says.
“Also, the contribution of my doctoral supervisors, Mahapatra Sir and Choudhary Sir, is immeasurable – it’s like transforming an ordinary stone to beautiful sculpture. They continuously refined my knowledge of physics and material science and guided the path of research,” Dr. Sahoo says. “I’ve been inspired from many peoples in different stages of my life, so it’s difficult to mention all of their name here. I’m blessed to have guidance and support from Professor Rangari in my current postdoctoral work.”